Chocolate, chocolate everywhere, and not a drop to eat

As I sit and drink my Swiss Miss Instant cocoa to satisfy one of the chocolate cravings I usually ignore here, I can’t help but laugh at the irony. Here I am, in a West African village and surrounded by cocoa trees, and the best I can do is instant chocolate sent from America?

It’s not that Ghana doesn’t have processed chocolate. They do. It’s just not very good and is difficult to find. Ask a villager about chocolate and they invariably say “Milo,” which is a vitamin-fortified hot chocolate drink here. Most have never eaten a chocolate bar, or if they have, it flakes in their mouths with the ever-satisfying texture of chalk.

But I digress. I mean to tell you about my time as a cocoa farmer. We are in late cocoa season, and the 50 kilo bags of beans are still regularly being dried all around the village. Cocoa farming is hard work. Such hard work, in fact, that I will never take chocolate for granted.

The process of farming cocoa is really a year-round effort. There’s spraying with fertilizer, pruning the trees, weeding the newest mangled additions to the farm, planting of root trees and tubers to stabilize the trees, and general inspections to make sure “black pod disease” has not infected the crop.

The pods, which house the budding cocoa beans, grow along the whole of the tree. Once the pod is yellow and about two pounds, it is ready to be plucked. After all the pods are plucked, it must be gathered from around the farm (usually on the day after picking) and brought to one pile. 

 

Cocoa pods grow along the tree

I had the pleasure of helping Gifty and Jackson “carry” cocoa and was exhausted after a measly five hours of work. Bend, toss, bend, carry, drop, repeat. Somewhere in there, Gifty demanded that I no longer carry the cocoa to its destination, but instead I “carry” her, which is an expression used to mean to help someone lift something heavy on their heads so they may carry it.

Gifty and Justice walk through the cocoa farm

Once gathered to a central location, the pods are cracked with a machete and pulled of its beans. Oddly, the sticky substance inside the pods that surrounds the beans tastes exactly like sour apple Now and Laters.

After enjoying nature’s candy for a few minutes, all the beans are placed in a pile with cocoyam or banana leaves placed on top while it ferments for a couple of days. Once fermented, the cocoa must be dried in the sun for a few days and is then sold for a little more than 100 USD per 50 kilo bag.

From there, it goes to local emporiums and is later shipped off to the capital city of Accra and sold to various companies, later to become delicious chocolate.

So basically, whoever figured out that chocolate can be made from these beans is one of the best humans to walk this Earth.

To celebrate this blog post, I’ll eat some American chocolate, sent by my lovely parents. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!

Black is beautiful

As a white volunteer in rural Ghana, I attract a lot of attention. Usually it’s just marvel at my fair complexion and different hair. On some occasions, however, it’s something else.

“Nana Yaa, give me your hair.”

“I like your skin. I want mine to be light like you.”

“Your nose is small. It is good.”

To be honest, I find it really disheartening. Here are people in some of the poorest and most remote areas of the world, yet many still adhere to the Westernized ideal of beauty: to be light is beautiful and to be dark is less than.

I simply don’t see it that way. I have seen more natural beauty in Ghana than I have seen anywhere in the world. The beauty-obsessed women Los Angeles have nothing on the smooth, flawless skin, and confident posture that I see here every day.

Even more disheartening is the surge of skin bleaching sweeping Africa. In Nigeria, 77% of women use these products on a regular basis, and 59% in Togo, 35% in South Africa, and 25% in Mali. Some of the biggest celebrities throughout the continent are engaging in the practice, thereby increasing its desirability to citizens across Africa.

The Velasco material (clothing) billboards that line the streets of Accra and Kumasi generally feature women with lighter black complexions and more “anglo” features: small, pointy noses and oval-shaped faces.

Considering all this, I decided to lead a session at our recent Western Regional Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) camp reminding young women that to be black is beautiful.

When designing the program, I decided to confer with Sarah Watson, a black American Peace Corps volunteer here in Ghana. She mentioned that she has been taking portraits of young women around her community and is working with the district assembly’s office to post some of them on a billboard at the entrance of town. Young women in rural Ghana are often not used to seeing photos of themselves displayed and tend to shy away from exhibiting outward confidence about their appearance. Overall, I thought it was a compelling way to broach the subject of loving their ebony skin.

Her approach sparked an idea for my project as well – what if the girls could see themselves on a screen, directly related to a conversation about black being beautiful? The morning of my presentation, I went around the camp and took photos of each of the girls, never addressing why or when they would see them again. Most of them were happy to pose, despite their non-smiling appearances. (The typical Ghanaian does not smile for pictures then flashes their gorgeous pearly whites as soon as the camera snaps.)

When the session began, I asked the girls to tell me what they think is beautiful. Girls raised their hands and gave an array of answers that all fed into them already knowing that black women are beautiful.

“Madam, the buttocks is beautiful.”

“Hips are very nice.”

“When a person is calm, they are beautiful.”

I was impressed with their responses. Not a single girl mentioned light skin or small noses. Perhaps these girls didn’t need my help after all.

I decided to introduce the subject any way, particularly because there was one girl who had likely already engaged in mild skin bleaching (the products available on a wide scale are more harsh and often leave red marks on the cheeks and the edges of the face. Don't worry -- I approached it lightly to avoid embarrassing her). I asked the girls if they ever hear people say that lighter black skin is preferable to darker skin. They had.

Felicity Yaa Pomah (yes, Yaa Pomah is also my name) is a teacher, all around bright and empowered woman and excellent mentor for the girls. She told the story of how a man in her town told her she is too dark and should be lightening her skin in order to appear more beautiful. She responded that she will never bleach her skin, because she is beautiful as she is.

This sparked a lively conversation about how they have similar pressures, but do not want to submit. In some sectors of the culture, it is also an expression of wealth (and thereby success) to bleach one’s skin, thereby adding to the social adoption of the practice.

I also explained the dangers of skin cancer, which were non-existent prior to skin bleaching. They have been given the gift of dark skin to withstand the high sun. It should be celebrated, not scorned or marred.

I then commenced the slideshow of their portraits taken earlier in the day, which set off a roar of giggles. Like the girls in Sarah’s town, most had never seen their photo on a large scale, nor do I think many of them had associated themselves with being beautiful.

When asked whether they ever looked in the mirror and only saw bad things, most of the girls (and volunteers) raised their hands. This sparked a discussion about the importance of confidence and self-acceptance, as well as the love of our most important type of beauty – the one that comes from within.

I may not be the expert at being black, but I understand what it’s like to feel pressure to fit into a typecast of what is beautiful.

The typecast is outdated. It’s ethnocentric. It’s just plain dumb.

I hope this generation of young African women feel empowered to say so. I hope the girls in our GLOW Camp are part of this group.

Here are some of my favorite portraits from the slideshow.

These Girls Have It

Hello everyone!

Some fellow volunteers and I will be hosting a Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) Camp here in Ghana in late August. We are about 1/3 of the way to our fundraising goal to put on this awesome camp and we need your help!

Our GLOW camp will help young women from our communities by teaching them about leadership and opportunities available for women in Ghana, including having a panel of successful women speak to the girls about how they overcame adversity. It will be a full five-day schedule, including talks about health, creativity, decision-making, self confidence (and more!) that we hope will inspire and empower these young women to achieve their dreams.

Things are a bit different here in Ghana, where young girls wake up at 5 a.m. to sweep the compound, fetch heavy loads of water, and prepare food before going to school. Once home, they do laundry, dishes, fetch more water, help prepare the meals, then do their homework. The teachers in my community were able to choose three young women who manage to do all this AND do well in school based on academic performance and letters they wrote describing why they want to attend the camp. 

Here’s a brief introduction to the girls selected.

Sandra Nkuah is among the brightest students in her school and a favorite among teachers and students. She has managed to avert peer pressure to drink and have sex because she wants to avoid compromising her future. Her ultimate goal is to become a doctor so she can help others. She likes playing football (soccer) and reading.

 Sandra, displaying her individual twist on the school uniform, in line for the close of school

Paulina Mensah is a smart and vivacious young woman who lives with a family that is not related to her, thereby doing work in exchange for food and boarding. She does well in school, keeps a tidy home, and helps out with her new baby “brother” while her family goes to farm. She would like to be a police woman in the future. She likes dancing and always lights a room up with her smile.

Paulina, refusing to show her teeth while smiling 

Sarah Gyapong is another promising young woman who does well in school and dreams of becoming a nurse one day. She says that when she goes to the market town and sees the nurses in their uniform, she feels happy and knows that’s what she wants to do. She is a sweet and mild-mannered young woman who is well liked in the community. 

Picture coming soon!

Please help Sandra, Paulina and Sarah go to this camp and donate today by clicking on the link below and selecting the amount you would like to give. Every little bit helps! Thanks in advance.

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-641-032

Much love,

Alisa

The Teacher I Like Best

Last week, I asked Mary, my neighbor and my enthusiastic English student, to write an essay about school and learning. This is what she wrote...


The Teacher I Like Best

Mrs. Nana Yaa Pomah is the name of my best teacher. She is twenty years old. She comes from U.S.A. but stays at Kwafukaa.

She is dark complexion and about four feet three inches tall. She have a little tribal mark on her left chin, a broad face and a pointed nose.

She likes laughing.

Mrs. Nana Yaa Pomah is a good teacher. At times she likes playing and sometimes she likes learning.

She is beautiful woman.

The subject she likes best is English. When she teach me I am understand.

Mary, in the middle 

So, as you can see, I have changed quite a bit since you all saw me last. Hope you all recognize me when you see me in the next couple weeks!

It Takes a Village

Justice balances his little legs off the edge of my lap and giggles, seemingly unwitting of what happened last week -- that his precious life was compromised.

I arrived home one afternoon to find my best friend in my village, Gifty, closing up her shop and preparing to go to the hospital. She told me that her two and half-year-old son, Justice, was brought there by her husband Jackson and she was going to join them.

A little panicked, I asked what his symptoms were -- fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, and she described how his eyes were rolling back into his head, “like this” as she demonstrated. We hurried to find a car, with no luck. Taxis only leave my village intermittently and none were around. After an anxious hour, a man with a motorcycle returned from farm and took Gifty to see her baby.

Everyone here knows Justice is my favorite little guy. I talk about him constantly and adore just about everything he says or does. In fact, I would venture to say that Justice is a lot of people’s favorite. Men returning from farm brush off their exhaustion, put down their machetes, and come to pat his slightly-too-big-for-his-body head, chanting his nickname, “Justo!”  Usually, he’s playing car with a variety of circular objects, running back and forth with his signature boundless energy.

He’s the kind of kid who’s going places. His parents have done everything right, including saving money for future schooling and teaching him early. This little guy can already repeat the English alphabet and count to twenty. Who else did that at two?

Justice and Jackson practice shadow boxing

With the family still at the hospital, I spent the night in worry, and can only imagine how Gifty and Jackson felt.

In the end Justice was fine, but he contracted malaria. Malaria is a disease which kills nearly 650,000 people in Africa every year, most of them children under five. With limited immunities to the disease, young children are more likely to develop cerebral malaria, which can lead to severe developmental issues and even death.

But there are the “strong men” in my community who believe they have little to worry about. While Gifty and her family sleep under a bed net every night to protect against malaria, many people brush off its importance, saying it is too hot and they aren’t worried about malaria. After all, they’ve had it several times before, and they’ve survived.

But this is not always the case for the children. Many Ghanaians do not understand that if they are infected, a mosquito can bite them, and re-infect someone else, including someone vulnerable to malaria’s harsher effects. If every person sleeps under a bed net every night, all year round, we can eventually eradicate this terrible disease.

While my counterpart, Osei Nkuah, and I work to educate our community and promote bed net usage for all people, we must also rely on our fellow community members to help spread the word.

A West African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child, and in the case of surviving malaria, it is most certainly true.

I have the pleasure of working with Stomp Out Malaria, a forward-thinking and inspired malaria eradication initiave in Peace Corps. For the past couple of years, Stomp has helped train, coordinate and promote volunteer-led malaria prevention and control programs throughout the Peace Corps Africa posts.

For more information about the work volunteers are doing to Stomp Out Malaria, please visit the web site at stompoutmalaria.org.

What I Do

What I Do

I realize I haven’t blogged in a while, and I’ve told you all very little about what I actually do here. Sure, I dance at church, chase adorable children, and laugh with my village friends here, but I also do work. Considering I have been here for more than a year, maybe I should explain what that entails.

I am a community health volunteer working on a Behavioral Change Communication (BCC) project with both a national partner (www.goodlifeghana.com) and a local NGO, though most of my work is separate and done with my awesome counterpart, Osei Nkuah, also known as “Manga” and “Chairman.”

Osei gives a "thumbs up" to the borehole drilling team

Basically, I use the materials provided by the national campaign to educate my community with Osei as my interpreter. I can get around in my local language, Sefwi (and sometimes Twi), but I cannot express the complexity of health issues without his help.

Oftentimes, we go house-to-house and educate people on topics ranging from malaria prevention to condom usage. It always draws a (slightly embarrassed looking) crowd when this white lady pulls out the wooden penis to demonstrate the proper application of a condom. Luckily, most Ghanaians view sex as a funny, rather than taboo, issue and they eventually end up watching and listening quite intently.

I do other educational events in my market town and beyond, but I think the most impactful work is done in the village. I’m their neighbor, their white lady, their Nana Yaa Pomah. They see me every day, so they aren’t as distracted by my pale skin, blue eyes and freckles like the Ghanaians who live outside my village.

About six months ago, I went to my village Junior High School and asked the students if they were interested in joining a health club, where they would learn about health topics from me, then teach them to smaller children. After a few lessons, including hygiene, hand-washing, and interactive decision-making lessons to help these teens make positive decisions about sex and drugs, they told me they were ready to teach.

Eight of the kids divided into four groups and co-taught hand-washing lessons to the primary school kids and seemed to enjoy the work. The younger children learned about how germs spread by shaking hands via baby powder and the older kids were taught a hand-washing clapping / song game created by the fabulous Linda Smittle from my training group.

All-in-all, it was a successful day of school health education and leadership training.

JHS girls practice the song they will teach

I am also working with my community and the local government to build a clinic via concrete donated by the district, community labor provided by the village, and eventually, a nurse and small staff provided by Ghana Health Services. This is a large project to undertake, and my main role is to serve as a liaison between the government and the community. So far, the village has spent a community labor day clearing the bush with their machetes and we are now waiting for the district to bring the bulldozers to level the area. The community is excited about the project and ready to do the work – wish us luck!

I think that’s a nice little snap shot of some of the work I do in my village. Hopefully, I can keep you all posted more often.

Kisses to America, I miss it so!